Pantherette
by Grey Whethers
Summary: A young girl dictates surviving in Gotham on her own terms
1. Shadows Appearing in the Night

The night was calm. The moon shone quietly on the suburbian neighborhood. The breeze whispered to the trees so as not to disturb the silence. It was Sunday and the rich inhabitants of the area were sleeping through the late hour, not aware of the one household not at peace.  
  
Lennon sighed and settled into her homework. She sat on her bed in her lavish room, papers spread out around her. She was a junior at Gotham Academy Prep, the private school for the children of the influential rich. Lennon couldn't care less.  
  
Just as she began another Trigonometry problem, her father burst into her room. Catching her off guard, he slapped the teenager so hard that she flew off her bed backwards.  
  
Lennon glared at her father, Richard Johnson. She used all her control to hold in her tears as her cheek burned with pain. She and Richard didn't come to terms, ever. Richard was a criminal defense lawyer, and a damn good one at that. The problem was that he only defended those who were actually criminals. Lennon didn't know why when she grew up in a house with underground scum and criminals she came out with good morals, but she knew she could attribute part of the credit to Harvey Dent, Gotham's District Attorney and her father's nemesis.  
  
"What was that for?" she yelled.  
  
"Dammit! Don't you talk back to me, girl! You dare sass your father?" he slurred. Lennon noticed by his slight swaying that he was quite drunk.  
  
"You're no father, Richard. What kind of father runs into his daughter's room and hits her for no reason?" Lennon was now crying without restraint, though more angry than sad.  
  
"I don't need a reason to beat an ungrateful little bitch like you!"  
  
"The courts would think differently," she mumbled as she made her way back onto her bed to reassemble her homework. She felt her cheek swelling up and knew well enough that there would be a bruise there the next day.  
"What did you say?" her father screamed.  
  
"I hate you! I hate who you are, I hate what you do, I hate that you're my father!!"  
  
"The feelings are mutual, I can assure you of that!"  
  
Lennon shrugged off Richard's cruel comments. In the seventeen years she was alive, she heard worse than that from him. And she knew what would get him going. "There is absolutely no way you can beat Harvey in court on Thursday," she said. "He has infallible evidence incriminating 'Lucky' Moroni."  
  
"Dammit! Damn Dent and damn you! I should kill you both!"  
  
Richard lunged at Lennon to punch her. She easily rolled out of the way and pushed him off balance with her foot. Amazingly enough for a drunk, her father caught her ankle as he fell over backwards. Using his momentum and intoxication against him, Lennon put her weight into the leg he had grabbed and landed on him as they hit the floor. Since she was in her bare feet, she forcefully kicked him across the face and knocked him unconscious.  
  
Lennon carelessly tossed Richard's two hundred pounds of dead weight out of her room and down the hall a ways. She closed her door, locked it and again attempted to reorganize her strewn homework papers. She stared blankly at her Trig homework. She had more important things on her mind than math at the moment and she was restless. She decided to let the homework wait until the next day. She hoped she wouldn't regret it.  



	2. Shadows Appearing in the Night

The scruffy street gang leader reminisced back to his old job as a bag boy at the local supermarket. It was certainly safer than his current employment. He originally signed on to make a quick buck and he thought he chose a safe bet. The mob boss that backed all the gangs in the Upper West Side was regarded by all as being untouchable, though absolutely no one at the street gang level knew who he was. Still, something had all the local gangs spooked. He didn't believe all the "Man-Bat" stories told down at the local hang out, but their tension was very contagious.  
  
His gang was gathered that evening in a supposedly-abandoned warehouse to take inventory. He paced nervously back and forth across the warehouse floor. Just as he was going to attempt to get his gang's attention, the skylight in the roof burst as a dark silhouette dropped in on them from above. The visage was followed close behind by a yellow streak.  
  
"The Bat!" one thug yelled out, as the whole gang scattered.  
  
The Dynamic Duo landed in the midst of the mass exodus, and they immediately began pursuing their prey. They rounded up gang member after gang member, but the leader got lost in the confusion.  
  
The gang leader thought he was home free when he reached main entrance to the warehouse. He opened the door, but immediately took a few startled steps backwards before tripping over himself and falling down. From nowhere, there appeared a looming costumed figure casually leaning in the doorway with a smirk on its face. "Well...hello there," a disjointed female voice said.  
  
"What da...?" the leader blurted out. "Another one a dem freaks?"  
  
The wraith-like shadow seemed to be atop him instantaneously with a firm grip on his shirt collar. She stared hard at him, only there were no eyes in the mask, just a white void where they should have been. The gang leader began trembling uncontrollably, and he got the feeling that the being only fed off of his fear.  
  
"That's Pantherette to you, buddy," she said through clenched teeth. A gloved fist raised in the air, readying to strike him. Then all went black.  



	3. Shadows Appearing in the Night

"That's all I see, Batman."  
  
From the dark corners of the rafters in the warehouse, the mysterious costumed female observed the imposing persona draped in black silently turn towards his teenaged partner.  
  
Robin spoke again, "It's just a blank black card."  
  
Batman moved towards the unconscious gang leader suspended in the doorway of the main entrance to the warehouse with rope around his midsection. The black card that Robin referred to was entwined in the rope. Batman swiftly pulled it out, careful not to loosen the binds. He turned it over and was faced with a strange blue insignia in the shape of a cat's head with glowing yellow eyes.  
  
"I've never seen anything like that before. Who do you think it belongs to?" Robin asked.  
  
A gruff voice answered, "Someone in way over their head, Robin." The spy shifted uncomfortably in her perch.  
  
The Boy Wonder was obviously confused. "Wait...you mean...?"  
  
"There's a new vigilante in Gotham," the Dark Knight finished.  
  
There was a torturous silence as Robin comprehended what that meant. Batman put the card back exactly as he found it and very slightly nodded to his partner. The crimefighting duo quickly disappeared from the warehouse, out of sight of the lurking observer.  
  
Pantherette pondered the vigilantes' response to her appearance as she heard sirens arriving in the distance. She gracefully made her way around the rafters until she reached a hatch that led to the roof. Quickly climbing through it, she crept along the dark roof, her long black cape protecting her from being seen by the police officers beginning to invade the warehouse. Without detection, she made her way down the building and to her motorcycle that was hidden in an alley behind another warehouse a good distance away from that one.  
  
Throwing on a helmet decorated with her Panther-insignia, she started her bike, affectionately dubbed the Catcycle, and drove off. She had one more destination to go to before she would call it a night. At that late hour, it didn't take her long to speed across town to a part of Gotham called Crime Alley. Once known as Park Row, the most influential section of Gotham, it now run rampant with underworld scum. She was there looking for one particular piece of scum who had information that she needed.  
  
Carefully concealing the Catcycle in another alley, Pantherette crept through the ground-level window of a certain apartment building, entering its dingy basement. In the corner of the basement, she spied out a ruffled sort of man with curly red hair and a patched-up suit sitting by a table that was covered with money, very carefully counting every last cent. The man's back was to her and he didn't even notice as she snuck up behind him. She grabbed his shoulder suddenly and spun him around towards her. Then she immediately clamped her hand over his mouth, keeping in his startled scream.  
  
"Be quiet!" the towering figure commanded. Eyes open wide with terror, the man quickly complied. "Terry the Rat?" He enthusiastically nodded in acknowledgment, as best he could underneath the gloved hand. Pantherette knew that he was a squirrelly little man whose nose was in every aspect of Gotham's underground. That's exactly what she was counting on.  
  
"Will you be quiet if I let go of your mouth?" Terry's head bobbed up and down again. Pantherette slowly let go of him.  
  
"Wh...who are you?" the little man stuttered.  
  
"The name's Pantherette." The crimefighter glared down at him. "But I'll be your worst nightmare if you don't tell me what I want to know."  
  
Terry abruptly stood up, knocking over his chair. "Wha...what? What is it you want?"  
  
She took a deliberate step forward. "What do you know about what's going on with Jackie the Rip? There's something big going down soon."  
  
Terry backed himself into the corner, gulping uncontrollably. "I know nuthin'! I swear!"  
  
"I don't believe you, Terry. Don't make me force it out of you, because I will." Pantherette took a few more steps towards the cowering figure.  
  
Shaking, Terry replied again, "I, uh...I don't know nu...nuthin'!"  
  
Without another word, Pantherette pounced and grabbed Terry's ankle. She stood up, effortlessly holding him upside-down.  
  
"Alright! I'll tell! I'll tell!" he shouted. "Put me down!"  
  
Pantherette carelessly dropped him and waited for him to speak. While rubbing his bruised head, Terry said, "Jackie is trading something big with another gang midnight tomorrow night. I dunno what it is, but knowin' the Rip, it's dangerous and nasty. It's gonna be in the Carusoe Inc. building downtown. Tenth floor."  
  
"Who's the other mob boss?" Pantherette prodded.  
  
"I dunno. I swear I don't know. He's hiding himself real good."  
  
Pantherette glared a couple of seconds before deciding that she believed him. "Alright, Terry." She added harshly, "Keep on your toes, cause I'll be back." Then she turned and melted into the shadows of the basement. Terry sat staring at where the teen vigilante disappeared, blinking in disbelief.  



	4. Shadows Appearing in the Night

Sun poured down generously on Gotham this particularly bright spring morning. Being a coastal city surrounded by water, the residents of Gotham didn't see beautifully sunny days nearly often enough. Lennon sat in her Trigonometry class, fully regretting being stuck inside at that moment. Instead, she was daydreaming of driving wildly in her cherished Porsche roadster along the cliff-ridden coasts of Bristol, she didn't hear her teacher speaking to her right away.  
  
"Lennon!" the math teacher said sternly.  
  
She finally turned towards him, but with a blank face, blinking incomprehensibly. "Uh, yes, Mr. Mar?"  
  
"I already asked you to put problem number 12 from last night's homework on the board. Please," he said this with sarcastic emphasis, "do it now."  
  
A pained look crossed Lennon's face as she realized she never did her homework the night before. She grinned sheepishly and told her teacher the same.  
  
Unmoved, Mr. Mar replied, "Then work it out on the board right now. You're not going to lunch till you're finished."  
  
Reluctantly, Lennon grabbed her textbook and went to the blackboard to put up the problem. She heard some students snicker and a girl in the front row whispered to her friend, "Guess Daddy can't get Lennon dear out of doing homework." Lennon didn't hide her annoyed stare before she began to work.  
  
As the bell rang ten minutes and two pieces of chalk later, she proudly pronounced, "Done!"  
  
Mr. Mar dismissed the class and as the students quickly filed out for lunch, he checked Lennon's work. "Perfect. I'm impressed, Miss Johnson. But next time..."  
  
She couldn't help but smile. "I know. 'Do my homework.'"  
  
The teacher nodded.  
  
Lennon hurriedly grabbed her books and backpack. While she ran out the classroom door, she said, "Sure thing, Mr. Mar. See ya."  
  
Before Lennon could take even two steps, her best friend grabbed her by the arm. "Babs! How nice of you to ambush me," she joked.  
  
"Sorry, but this is important," said the redhead, almost whispering. "You'll never believe what I heard from my father."   
  
Barbara Gordon's father was the Commissioner of Gotham City's Police Department. Babs always had juicy tidbits of information for Lennon about the goings on of the police, which Lennon soaked up attentively. Babs knew Lennon's unique situation gave her best friend a strong affinity for all things involving justice, especially since she first told Lennon of the vigilante called Batman some years ago.  
  
"What is it, Babs?" Lennon asked.  
  
Babs looked around, as if someone were trying to listen in on their conversation. She whispered carefully, "Dad and Batman suspect that there's a new vigilante in Gotham."  
  
Lennon was almost speechless. "What? Who?"  
  
"They don't know. There's only-"  
  
Lennon looked up to see why Babs stopped speaking so quickly and smiled widely as she saw her boyfriend, Dick, approaching them. Dick Grayson was fairly tall and extremely good-looking with jet-black hair and bright royal blue eyes. At school he got teased for being a goodie-two shoes rich boy, since he was the ward of the prestigious multi-billionaire, Bruce Wayne. Lennon knew that there was a wild streak in him, though, that most didn't see. That's what initially drew her to the high school senior.  
  
"What are you two conspiring about now?" he asked jokingly.  
  
"Who? Us?" replied Lennon innocently with a wink.  
  
Dick grinned back at her and reached to gently pull her into a kiss. Lennon involuntarily flinched as he touched her cheek, her eyes downcast. Dick immediately pulled his hand away, but then slightly turned her chin, finally seeing the bruise that Lennon tried so carefully to conceal with make up. Lennon looked up at him, and Dick smiled so that she wouldn't see the pity in his eyes. He gave her a warm hug and kissed her gently.  
  
Babs watched the exchange somewhat sadly. She couldn't help but be slightly jealous of Lennon. Her best friend got her first boyfriend before Babs. Still, she knew that Lennon more than deserved someone who could make her as happy as Dick did.  
  
As the couple parted, Babs only half-heard Lennon going on about the wonderful sunshine to Dick. She pondered what it would be like to have a boyfriend of her own. Suddenly put their hands over her eyes from behind. "Wha?!" she cried out, startled.  
  
"Guess who," a medium-deep voice answered.  
  
Babs knew it could only be one person. "Grant Garrison," she stated. The hands let go of her and she quickly spun around to see the ruggedly handsome face with a crooked grin on it. Babs smiled back as she admired the tousled golden brown hair that fell in his green eyes.  
  
Lennon and Dick gave each other a knowing look. They noticed Babs and Grant eyeing each other since the beginning of the school year. Lennon whispered in her boyfriend's ear, "They'll be together by the end of the week. I guarantee it."  
  
Dick smiled. He grabbed Lennon's hand and as the couple walked off, he called out, "Come on, you lovebirds. All this sunshine must be getting to you. Let's find the rest of our gang and scrounge us up some lunch."  
  
Babs and Grant both turned bright red and quickly hurried after Lennon and Dick, each hoping it wasn't just the day's warmth affecting them.  



	5. Shadows Appearing in the Night

The wind whipped through Lennon's long mahogany hair, tangling the tresses with a fury. With the top down and her shades on, she soaked up the last of the sun's rays dwindling over the horizon. Her Porsche roadster hugged the curves of the tiny, winding road beautifully as she raced along the edge of the towering Bristol cliffs. After work she thought about going home and possibly seeing her father and knew that her current detour was necessary to her sanity.  
  
After school, Lennon gave out about two to three hours of private lessons to earn her some spending money. The rest of her living funds came from Harvey Dent, who was more than willing to support her. She never touched her father's blood money from his criminal activities.  
  
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday she gave gymnastic lessons to young girls who were at a beginning to an advanced level. On Tuesday and Thursday, she worked at the dojo where she herself learned martial arts and earned so far up to a level four black belt in judo, karate, tae kwan do, jujitsu, and, a rare sport for a prestigious dojo, kickboxing. She was currently working towards earning a mastery level on the Bo, an ancient but deadly Japanese weapon. Her test on the weapon was on Thursday, the same day as the case between Harvey and Richard. She was sort of unhappy that she wouldn't be able to get to the courthouse until after working at the dojo that day, because she always tried to attend every minute of Harvey's big cases.  
  
As the sun finally dipped below the horizon, Lennon made her way home. She was wary of what she might find once she got there, but she knew it would be no different from every other day of her life. Her house had a constant influx of thugs and molls, all the lowest of the low in Gotham's underworld. Other times, they were "honored" by the visit of other Bosses, as they were her father's most regular clients. When she was home, her father either seemed oblivious to her presence or finding some way to abuse and humiliate her. And his men never ceased making crude comments or gestures towards her. After being exposed to it day after day, though, she learned to ignore it all.  
  
Pulling her car into one of their huge garages, Lennon noted the other cars parked haphazardly around the fountain roundabout in the center of the huge courtyard that was the entrance to the Johnson's two-story mansion. She sighed as she got out of the car and walked up the six steps to the huge oak double doors that led inside the house, hauling her books on her back in her backpack. She silently opened one of the doors and crept into the entryway. She could hear Richard speaking angrily from the dining room and then knew it must be some of his men visiting. She snuck through the living room towards the stairs, hoping her father wouldn't notice her.   
  
Lennon got halfway up the stairs when her father turned and glared straight through her. She abruptly stopped in her tracks.   
  
"Lennon. You home from school already, girl?"  
  
She arched an eyebrow. "Looks that way to me."  
  
Richard gave an evil grin. "Good. It's about time I took of you permanently, you ungrateful little brat."  
  
With a nod of her father's head, Tommy guns materialized seemingly out of nowhere in three gangster's hands. Lennon barely had time to react as bullets began to fly at her. She turned and ran up the rest of the stairs, dropping her schoolbooks. She mumbled to herself, "What the hell has gotten into him?"   
  
"Watch out for the china!" she heard her father yell.  
  
Great! Lennon thought. Kill the kid, he says, but watch the china. She reached her room and slammed the door behind her, locking it. Lennon immediately went to her closet and grabbed a rope ladder, there supposedly in case of a fire. She threw open a window and hooked up the ladder as the men began attempting to knock down her door. She knew it would not take them long to get through. Desperately, she jumped outside, sliding more than climbing down the ladder. She landed hard on the dirt and grass and quickly went into the enclosed area where the garbage cans were kept, shutting the gate behind her. Of the six garbage cans there, she went to one in particular, took off the lid, and jumped inside.  
Just then, Richard and his men busted down the door of Lennon's bedroom. They noticed the hanging rope ladder and ran to the window. There wasn't any sign of Lennon anywhere.   
  
Richard began screaming. "Search the grounds outside! She couldn't have gone far!"  
  
The gaggle of thugs quickly made their way outside. They searched high and low, but to no avail. One man even looked into each and every garbage can, but they were all empty.  
  
"Send a hit out on my daughter throughout the underground," said Richard, frustrated. "A reward of $5,000. She won't go far in this city without someone trying to kill her."  
  
"Yes, sir," said his men before they tromped away.  
  
Richard angrily punched the side of the mansion. "Goddamned bitch!"  



	6. 

With a soft thud, Lennon hit the cool dirt floor. She paused a moment, letting what just happened sink in. Looking slowly around her at her haven, she sighs to herself, unsettling the dusty atmosphere a bit.  
  
To the left were shelves of equipment, with everything from ropes, hooks, and gas balls to a high tech set up to make any hacker envious. Opposite that was full living quarters, though miniaturized to conserve space in the underground lair. Lennon quietly thanked Harvey for the umpteenth time for making all of it possible.  
  
Lennon fell onto the nearby futon and sorted out her mind. Everything happened so quickly that she hadn't really realized what kind of situation she was in. One minute she was planning on doing her homework, the next she was being shot at. It was a bit tough to swallow all at once.  
  
She was now glad that Harvey had the foresight to install a phone in her underground lair. She picked up the reciever and called his office in the business district downtown. Harvey's secretary, Ethel, answered, "District Attorney Dent's office."  
  
"Hi, Ethel. It's Lennon."  
  
"Oh, hello dear. How are you doing?"  
  
"Good enough. Um, I have sort of an emergency on my hands. Is Harvey busy?"  
  
"It doesn't matter. You know Mr. Dent will want to take your call."  
  
"Thanks, Ethel."  
  
Lennon heard a click as she was put on hold. A few seconds later, Harvey picked up the phone. "Lennon, Ethel said you had an emergency?"  
  
"Yeah, you could put it that way. I'm safe for now, but I had a ...deadlier run in with my father than usual."  
  
"What? He tried to kill you?? Richard never quits..." Harvey sighed deeply, matching Lennon's earlier sigh. "Where are you hiding?"  
  
"You know where I am. I never know where my father may have ears. But there's something else that's nagging at me. While Richard wanting to kill me for the hell of it is conceivable, there has to be something else going on with him. Something big. The only thing that can relate to is the trial. I can take care of myself, that's no problem. The problem is how this thing is going to end. You, me, or my father, or any combination of the above named, aren't going to get out of this in one piece."  
  
"You know, it really unnerves me when you have premonitions like that."  
  
"Well, it's not the loveliest prospect, I know."  
  
"No," Harvey responded slowly. "It's cause you're usually right."  
  
The conversation paused for a few moments. "I have no place to live now," Lennon commented.  
  
"What do you propose?"  
  
"I'll be at the old homestead." This was their code name for Harvey's house.  
  
Harvey paused, "You sure?"  
  
"Yeah...I have to stay there."  
  
"Ok. You stay safe, alright?"  
  
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Bye, Harv." She wearily hung up the phone.  
  
Lennon went to the mini-fridge, pulled out a soda, and flopped back onto the futon. She was just going to relax until she went out that night as Pantherette, mainly because of a lack of anything better to do. But also because if she stressed over the situation any more, it would just make things worse.   
  
As she began to take another sip of her soda, the bottle suddenly slipped out of her hand and crashed to her floor. Lennon burst into tears. They were tears of rage, tears of hate, tears of sadness. Her father had finally gone too far, but she didn't know how far he intended to go. That's what worried her.  
  



	7. 

The Carusoe Inc. building was dark and quiet amid the light spring mist covering Gotham and its surrounding bay.  
  
Pantherette felt that she might get a sudden case of claustrophobia, but tried to ignore her cramped position as she formed a plan of attack in her head. From her perch inside the ventilation shaft, she watched Jackie the Rip as he paced the length of a lush office. A single briefcase lay on a table near him, huge armed thugs watching over it solemnly. Rubbing her nose avidly to keep from a disastrous sneeze, she waited as anxiously as everyone else in the room for Jackie's guest to arrive.  
  
Suddenly, the door of the office burst open, startling Pantherette and Jackie equally. The teen crimefighter's jaw dropped as she saw her own father standing in the doorway, flanked by men of his own. Stunned frozen, she watched uncomprehendingly as Richard approached the other mob boss and they greeted each other formally, business-like. Within seconds the exchange was made, but Pantherette still couldn't push herself to act. When she finally moved, she noisily fumbled around in her belt for a Catarang, instead causing smoke balls to roll out of the vent into the office. The gangsters were already on guard by the time the smoke balls exploded, filling the room with a thick grey mist.  
  
Bursting out of the ventilation shaft, Pantherette threw on a gas mask and went after the coughing gangsters at full throttle, punching and kicking everyone and everything she came in contact with. Moments of eternity passed, but she couldn't find Richard among the chaos. Thug after thug went down in her violent assault, even Jackie the Rip, but somehow Richard seemed to have slipped away and disappeared from the scene.  
  
The windows shattered, and finally the room began to clear as the smoke was sucked outside. Pantherette looked to the source of the broken glass, and out of the fading mists appeared the silhouettes of the Dynamic Duo. Pantherette flung her gas mask harshly to the ground in frustration, not wanting to meet the white voids of Batman's eyes with her own.  
  
"I thought I told you to stop fooling around and stay home," his deep voice growled at her. As she slowly looked up at him, he continued, "You just let the notorious Richard Johnson get away."  
  
The truth of Batman's words rang in Pantherette's head, and yet it angered more than hurt her. "Look, Batman, it's none of your business whether I stick with crimefighting or not. We're going to need to help each other if we're going to catch Richard, because, believe me, I want to see him behind bars more than anyone else in this city."  
  
"And how could you possibly help me, other than by getting in the way?" he roughly remarked.  
  
Glaring, she answered, "I have an inside track for information on Richard. In fact, I have some info about him right now that you might like to hear. Of course, I won't tell you unless you agree to let me help you put him away."  
  
Batman steamed a moment, reluctant to give in to what he felt was rash child's play.  
  
"Fine, but you mess up once more like this and you must promise to stay home."  
  
Pantherette shrugged. "Sure. I can't tell you exactly what Richard got from Jackie tonight, but that should be easy enough to convince out of Jackie himself. I can tell you, though, that you should look for things connected to the big trial this Thursday. Plus, Richard put a hit out on his daughter, Lennon, this evening." Robin's eyes grew wide just for a split second, but Pantherette caught the slight movement, her curiosity piqued.  
  
Batman gave a slight nod of approval, then he tossed something at her. "Here."  
  
"What's this?"  
  
"It's a homing device. Use it if you have any more info for me and I'll find you."  
  
Pantherette glanced at the object curiously a few seconds, but by the time she looked up again, Batman and Robin had already disappeared from the office. She looked at the mass of unconscious thugs surrounding her as she put the homing device away in her belt. Sure, she thought, leave me to clean up my own mess. She sighed deeply to herself as she set to work, tying up the thugs to leave them for the Gotham Police.  



End file.
